A/N: written: September 2012
edited: August 21, 2013
I don't own anything! The title of this piece comes from a really moving song by Bon Iver.
They took it from him.
When they took his power, his gift, from him, they tore it right from his burning esophagus. They ripped his core out from the inside, they stole his light; he dropped to his knees, his toes curling in his boots and his jaw clenched so tightly he thought his teeth would shatter. Fire licked up and down his spine, a lancing agony piercing every inch of his being. There was a ceaseless, vicious roaring in his ears, behind his eyes; his fingers clawed at the stone floor for purchase as the earth quaked around him.
Gods, please, no, anything but this—please. Please don't take it from me. Please.
For one desperate moment he entreated, implored, begged for mercy—
He returned to the earth empty and cold, crouched on the smooth tiles with his hands clenched as if in prayer. He bit his tongue so hard that he tasted blood. The world came back to him in pieces—a gloved hand brushing tentatively against his shoulder, a low voice asking of his condition—but all he could focus on was the desolation, the hollowness, the unfilled void within his chest. There was no coiling of strength in the pit of his stomach, no stream of energy for which he could reach. He had no mystic succor, no enchanted aid. The magic he had nurtured for so long was simply gone—the only warmth he'd ever known and they'd taken it from him, ripped it from his insides and left him freezing and barren.
At the realization, his eyes stung with hot tears, and he kept his head bowed as he blinked them away profusely. They would not see him cry, they would not, they would not, they would not. The silence was suffocating and he choked on it, his harsh breaths echoing and reverberating until the ugly push and pull of his lungs fighting to keep him alive was resonating throughout the entire domed room.
It's gone, it's gone, all of it, it's GONE—
He became aware of the hand on his shoulder, heard the voice repeat itself in startling clarity: "Brother?"
That single word made him seethe and all at once he wanted to scream—had he screamed when the light had left him? Had his keening wails echoed around the walls of the chamber? Had every onlooker closed their eyes and turned away and held their children to their breast and murmured, "Don't look," as he was beaten by an invisible hand, flogged like an old cur that had disobeyed its master one too many times?
He held his tongue, caught his breath, and glared. Above him, Thor cried.
"Oh, brother, I am so sorry," he blubbered. "It hurt you. I know it hurt you, and I couldn't stop it, and—and—"
Was he really so dense that he didn't realize that the "it" of which he spoke was his own people? That the agony inflicted upon his "brother" (the moniker was losing meaning each time it rolled from Thor's lips; another thing that he seemed not to understand) was from the king's retinue, his father's entourage, people with whom they'd both shared evening repasts and hunting ventures as children?
Was he really so dense that he didn't realize that he was not one of them?
Because he wasn't. He wasn't one of them. He wasn't what any of them defined him as, wasn't what anyone said.
He knew exactly who he was, exactly who he was going to be. He was going to take what had never belonged to him and make it become his. He was going to be implacable.
So Loki looked up at Thor, teeth bared like a feral animal, features drawn taut, wrists manacled and light gone from his eyes, and hissed, "I will cut your jugular myself. Just wait."